Scotch, Matthew

Summary: Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web (3.0) provide great opportunities for biomedical informatics research and the development of informatics tools and resources to address problems across the full spectrum of health science research. One example is ZooPhy, an automated workflow for phylogeography. This system may be useful for epidemiologists who conduct surveillance and analysis of zoonotic (animal-human) agents. In addition to genetic, taxonomic, and geographical data, ZooPhy will include traditional public-health data collected by health departments. Through phylogenetics, data-mining, and machine-learning approaches, this system may help epidemiologists better understand the migration of various zoonotic diseases in animal hosts, estimate of the viral population growth within these hosts, and calculate risk to humans within a defined geographic area.